COLOMBO : Well-known senior lawyer and JPUM Alhaj Ahmed Rafi Ibrahim Marickar ,originally from Matara turned 100 on 7th October and celebrated his landmark event ,surrounded by his family and friends in Colombo.
The family released a publication celebrating his illustrious life journey through a century, titled ‘Vita Bene Acta’( Life Well Lived) in keeping with his penchant for Latin phrases. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Minister of Justice and Justice Ahsan Marikkar, Judge of the Court of Appeal, among many other notables, too contributed congratulatory messages to this magazine.
Born on 7th October 1923, Marickar hails from a well known and reputed family in the Matara district, and was the 6th in his family of seven children. He was the grandson of late Idroos Lebbe Marickar ,the first Muslim to be appointed as the Kachcheri Mudaliyar of the Hambantota district in the year 1891, during the time of the Assistant Government Agent Leonard Wolf, the famous author of ‘the Village in the Jungle’.
He traces back his maternal lineage to one of Ceylon’s well known Sufi Saints, Hajiar Appa as he was widely known. After schooling in both Tangalla Christ Church College, and Colombo St Peters College, he joined the Law College to become an Advocate. He recalls his student days in Colombo, when WWII broke out in Europe, and can clearly remember the day Pearl Harbour was attacked. He passed out and took his oaths as a lawyer in 1954.
Marickar married Mumtaz , the daughter of Mr. S.A.C. Issadeen, the hostel warden at Zahira College, in 1958 and has four daughters. He became very popular and well respected among his contemporaries and clients due to the high professional standards he always maintained, while practicing at the Matara Bar. He also served as the Patron of the Matara Law Society. On completing his fifty years of his legal career in 2004, Matara Law Society organized a special felicitation ceremony. He served in the Wakf Board too. He was also a trustee of the iconic Muhiyadden Jumma Masjid in Kotuwegoda Matara during 1961-1963 and has been playing a pivotal role in serving the people of Matara in social, religious, cultural and educational fields.
Always consciously well -dressed, with the pipe in his mouth , Maricks, (as his law colleagues called him) liked his iconic Morris Minor car with the unique number 1 Sri 2345 -a collector’s item. He vividly recalled fond memories of a golden era of communal harmony and peace when violence and hate were unknown. All communities then lived like one family and 90 percent of his clients were Sinhalese including Buddhist monks. Today, he bemoaned how our country later became a shattered nation due to our people refusing to learn bitter lessons of the past.
Marickar now lives with his eldest daughter Feroza in Dehiwela.
“Ad multos annos”! (For many years)!
